Cheap From the Earth to the Moon (Book) (JULES VERNE) Price

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Customer Reviews of From the Earth to the Moon

A Star Amongst the Books of Jules Verne
Every book written by Jules Verne that I have ever read I have thought to be a true masterpiece, and this novel is no exception! It features the Gun Club, a club established during the Civil War whose members tend to be a little...er..."incomplete," as one of the characters himself puts it. These men are growing bored in the absence of opportunities to construct and test out new artillery weapons, so their president, the imperturbable, confident Barbicane, proposes they send a projectile to the Moon via a gigantic cannon! This idea is greeted with great approval from the world over, as Barbicane and his club work to organize all the details of the experiment and make sure everything will go perfectly. But despite lots of support from many nations, one man, Barbicane's main enemy, Captain Nicholl, bets several thousand dollars that the experiment will go amiss. To add to the confusion, right in the midst of things, a suave, passionate Frenchman named Michel Ardan decides to ride to the Moon in the projectile himself! I thought this book was, more than anything, very amusing. Verne's way of making his characters truly jump off the page with their vivid dialogue and lovable quirks provides for an abundance of understated humor. I also admired the book's thoroughness in its portrayal of the organization needed to help really get this project "off the ground," from the discussions of the necessary precautions to take, through the math and scientific facts that guide the crafty inventors, up to the assembly of the cannon. The plot is full of unexpected twists and turns and character revelations which fit nicely into the story. A must-read!

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Verne Has Done Much Better
"From the Earth to the Moon" is Jules Verne's least appealing work that I have read so far. It is the story of the Baltimore Gun Club and their attempt to build a cannon big enough to shoot a bullet to the moon. The gun club dreams up the idea as a way of filling time after the end of the Civil War.

The leader of the club, Impey Barbicane, is wagered that he can't pull it off. Also, a Frenchman has volunteered to ride along on the bullet.

It has been about four years since I read "From the Earth to the Moon", so I don't remember many of the details very well. I do remember my feeling after having finished it that, not only was it inferior to other works of Verne, but that it was an inferior novel by itself. The characters are more like caricatures than real people, the dialogue is unusually bombastic for a Verne hero (perhaps this was Verne's take on Americans), and the action was undramatic.

I would suggest reading other works by Verne like "Around the World in Eighty Days" and "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" before this one so that you don't develop an initial dislike for his work. Verne is an excellent author not indicative of this work.

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First part good, second part, not so much.
Verne writes a great story in From the Earth to the Moon, ending on a cliff hanger that leaves you wondering, exploring all the science of his day, and the possibilities therein. Sometimes it can get a bit long-winded, but overall, a fun read.

The second portion is far less so, however. One gets the impression that, after his first novel was published, he suffered a large amount of scientific criticism, or else new scientific data came in, denying some of what he had written. Perhaps he simply gave in to critics who claimed the novel seemed unfinished. And so he wrote a second novel, and wrote too much. A Trip Around It suffers from extreme long-windedness, and tedious explanations of what we have observed of the moon, and what was hypothesized about the moon in Verne's day. I kept on reading, skimming finally, waiting for the action to begin, waiting for something to develop- and was disappointed. This is a novel about three men who are all rather big on themselves, traveling in cramped quarters, describing fictional and real geography. And it's simply not fun to read a novel whose characters are only proud people. This was perhaps a book that served a scientific purpose for understanding the lunar terrain, when it was written. Now it is more of a historical note on Verne's failure, and how not to write.